


Right in front of me

by mysonny



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23002399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysonny/pseuds/mysonny
Summary: Soulmates can feel each others physical pain. Too bad soccer players get hurt all the time.Emily and Lindsey through the years.
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 26
Kudos: 277





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I'd try something else for once. 
> 
> As always, English isn't my first language!

Emily is a very active child, jumping over things, climbing trees, eventually starting soccer. Always up to something with Emma. Emma is more careful than her, telling her that she wouldn’t want to annoy her soulmate by injuring herself too much. When Emma says that, Emily stops for a moment to think it through. Of course, she doesn’t want to anger her soulmate. She also doesn’t want to hurt them because she is always hurting herself. Then again, all her bruises won’t show up on her soulmate’s skin, they just sting for a while and will be forgotten the next day. So, what harm does she really bring the other person?

She doesn’t stop playing after Emma makes her worry. However, she _is_ a bit more careful when the situation allows her to be. Which isn’t often, but she can only do so much. Often, she isn’t even sure if her shins are hurting because she had run into something or because her soulmate did. She figures they are pretty even.

When she breaks her wrist in third grade by tripping and falling during recess, she genuinely feels sorry for her soulmate. She knows that a major injury like a broken bone would hurt her person more than the usual bruises. That evening, she expresses her concerns to her dad and asks him if her soulmate would be angry with her.

“Emily, they are hurting some more than usually and they might be a bit irritated but I’m sure they won’t be angry with you for that long. Do you remember when your tummy hurt last year?”

“Yes, Daddy. That wasn’t nice. And I didn’t even do anything!”

“Right, that is because your soulmate hurt their tummy and you could feel it, too. Now, are you angry with your soulmate?”

Emily frantically shakes her head “No! It wasn’t their fault!”

“There you go.” He smiles warmly down at her “Now, be careful with the cast and don’t sleep on your wrist tonight, alright? I’m sure your wrist will be healed in no time and your soulmate won’t hurt anymore in two or three days.”

-

When Emily is 12 she gets a serious headache for three days. She is sure that she hadn’t fallen on her head in soccer practice (again) and that she also hadn’t hit it on the door of her locker (again). It gets so bad that she has to tell her parents about it because Emma is concerned for her health. Her mom takes her to the doctor, who checks her for a concussion. Besides the bad headache, she doesn’t show any symptoms of one so the doctor tells her it was probably her soulmate who got one. It is the first big injury her soulmate had gotten besides the tummy ache. She is used to the slight pain in the shins or occasionally her thigh. Once her ankle was throbbing for two hours while she was watching TV but nothing had ever lasted this long. She gets a bit annoyed because she couldn’t concentrate on her homework but she figures that it is only fair that it isn’t _always_ her who causes her soulmate unnecessary pain.

-

“Em, I think, I want to play soccer like all the time.”

They are 14 when she voices the thought, that had been stuck in her head for months now, to her twin. “Imagine how it will go ‘The amazing Emily Sonnett scores another goal for the United States! This young woman from Georgia truly is remarkable!’” she yells in her best announcer-voice.

Emma only rolls her eyes.

“You do know there is something besides soccer, right? Like don’t you want to enjoy dances and stuff? You already missed our junior high-school-graduation. Don’t you want a social life? Dates?”

“I don’t care about those dances, way too stiff anyways. Not my scene. Also, dating? What’s the point, I have a soulmate, I don’t need to date around.”

“And how do you want to find your soulmate if you won’t get close to anyone? Find a stranger whose shin hurt because you got a bruise from soccer practice? I don’t think that’ll work.”

Emily blankly stares at her sister. She truthfully hadn’t thought about how she would find her soulmate, always thinking when she’d met them, she’d know. Of course, that’s not how it really works but she didn’t think that should be something to hold back her soccer career.

There is something else she hadn’t told Emma yet. She thinks that her soulmate might be a girl. She isn’t ready to actually entertain that thought or talk about it but it was definitely holding her back from going out with Ryan from down the street who had asked her to the dance last month. She had been glad that she had a game the next day and could use that as an excuse to not go with him, it spared her from a very awkward evening.

“I still don’t think I want to date anyone right now. I will meet someone who I’ll like and they either will be my soulmate or they won’t but I don’t think they are here in the middle of nowhere, Georgia. We are 14 for God’s sake, I’m in no rush.” She sounds more confident than she really is but Emma leaves her alone after that and doesn’t talk about dating anymore.

When she goes to bed that night, she can’t help but wonder how she _will_ find her soulmate. She had never paid the soulmate thing any mind besides feeling sorry for their shins. She figured she would find them, or _her_, sooner or later somehow. It is a bit stupid to assume it’ll happen on its own accord but then again, it’s also a bit stupid to date someone at 14 and hope they are your soulmate. She decides to worry about the soulmate-thing later and concentrate on soccer, she couldn’t rush her soulmate to meet her anyways, why stress out about it?

-

The TV is playing some dumb reality-show and she honestly feels her brain cells leaving her body. It’s the second day in a row that she is confined to the couch, elevating her aching knee and wondering what the heck her soulmate did to cause this immense amount of pain to her. She doesn’t want to imagine how they must feel. She is thankful that she hasn’t had a major injury caused by soccer so far and hopes it’ll stay like that, she just got done with her first year of college and doesn’t want anything disturbing that. She knows though that she will probably tear something during her career, it would be foolish to think that she won’t. She already feels sorry for her poor soulmate.

She is deep in thought when Emma gets home from shopping, both of them being home for the summer.

“What’s got you thinking so hard? And how’s the knee?”

Emily shrugs and continues to look at the TV “I don’t know. The knee’s getting better though. I guess it got me thinking about what I’ll do to my soulmate as a soccer player. I’ll hurt her more than the average person.”

“Well, you know, they could be a football- hang on! _Her_?! What do you know that I don’t know??”

Emily looks up to Emma like a deer caught in headlight. Emma only smirks back at her. She knows then that she can’t talk herself out of this. She had avoided the topic for years for this very reason and now she had babbled without thinking first.

“Well. I can’t imagine myself with a guy? Like- I don’t know, I just can’t. I’m pretty sure my soulmate has to be a girl. It’s just a feeling of course. Because who knows? Certainly, not me. But when I think about them, I picture a girl.”

So, there’s that.

-

She meets Becca during her junior year in class. She doesn’t have a lot of friends outside of her soccer team, mainly because they don’t have a lot of spare time. They spend most of their time at practice, on the bus to away games, in the gym, or at games. Emily is very happy to finally meet someone she clicks with outside of her team. It’s refreshing. At this point she is used to only having friends on her team. No one else ever wanted to come second to the sport and with teammates as friends that never was a problem. When she first tells Emma about her new friend, she gets a thoughtful look on her face but doesn’t say anything. It isn’t until her sister comes to visit her at UVA that she says something.

“Is she your soulmate?”

Emily looks at her sister dumbfounded. “Who?”

“Becca, you idiot.” Emma laughs at her and shoves her for being as dense as ever.

“How would I know?” she genuinely wonders. She still thinks she would feel something if Becca was her soulmate. She would definitely feel different around her or would’ve noticed already. Wouldn’t she?

“Oh my god, Em. How do I put up with you? Maybe test it? Run into something and see if it hurts her as well? Maybe hit your head, so your brain gets pushed into the right place!” Emma hits her on the back of her head and looks at her exasperated “How do you think Mom knew that Dad was her soulmate? By waiting? By looking into his eyes?”

Emma’s words spark something in Emily. She spends the next days and weeks wondering if Becca is her soulmate. Those thoughts quickly turn into scenarios of their future together, imaginations of Becca as her girlfriend. She soon is in way too deep and doesn’t have the guts to put Becca to the test. When she sprains her ankle during a game and Becca isn’t in class the next day, she gets her hopes up. Her thoughts run a mile a minute and she’s in too good of a mood for a swollen ankle. It gives her the push she needed to test Emma’s theory and her dreams and see if Becca really is her soulmate. She’s been walking around with those thoughts for over a month now, it’s time she does something about it.

They meet to study together for their midterm a week later and Emily can’t concentrate because she keeps thinking about her possibilities. Should she bump her head on something? Should she kick the table? Should she just run into the door? Or possibly drink the still too hot coffee?

She calls Emma later that night on her way back to her dorm.

“I’m not listening to you anymore. I was perfectly fine with waiting, you got my hopes up! Don’t try to meddle with my life anymore, please.”

-

After the bad experience and heartbreak with Becca, Emily goes back to her old ways of banning the thought of her soulmate from her brain. She has phenomenal games with her college team and even gets called up for the senior national team in October of 2015. The camp is part of the World Cup victory tour and she gets her first cap in the second game against Brazil. Emily can’t believe her luck when she gets to start and play the full 90 right next to one of her idols, Becky Sauerbrunn. The thoughts about soulmates and shared pain are long forgotten by then, she is fully concentrating on her career. When she gets a hard and painful hit on top of her foot during the game she doesn’t even think about her soulmate anymore, instead she scrambles to keep up with her opponent, head fully in the game.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lindsey's point of view of their childhood and teenage years.

Lindsey is 6 when she gets home from school and doesn’t feel good. Her stomach hurts really bad and instead of doing her reading like she is supposed to do, she goes to bed.

Her brother is home as well because he somehow hurt his leg. He comes to her room to keep her company and lays on the floor in front of her bed to tell her a story. When her Mom checks on both of them, she doesn’t seem too worried about Mike’s leg. Instead she only tells him that he knows how it is and that she hopes that it’ll be better soon. When she turns to Lindsey, she seems more worried.

“Lindsey, honey, can you tell me when the pain started?”

“I don’t know Mom, in school I guess. I’m sorry.” She tries to remember but she really isn’t sure. She feels bad because it seems important for her to remember.

“Okay, don’t worry about that. Now, does the pain feel like it felt when it started? Or did it change? Maybe it got better or worse?”

“It hurts more Mommy” Lindsey cries “It wasn’t so bad in school, now my tummy hurts really bad.”

Her Mom takes her to the hospital, it turns out to be something called appendicitis, she can’t pronounce the word but Mike comes to visit and teaches her. She needs to get surgery and stay in the hospital for two days. When she gets home, her parents sit down with her to have a serious conversation. For a moment, she thinks she might be in trouble because she missed school.

“Honey, do you remember that Mike’s leg hurt the other day when your tummy hurt?”

“Yes, Mommy, he didn’t fall on it or anything!” Lindsey’s eyes widen, how did her brother get hurt? “There wasn’t a bruise, what did he do?”

“Well, you know how Mommy and I are married right?” Her Dad waits for her to nod “We got married because we really love each other and because we are soulmates.”

“What’s a soulmate?”

“Two people who are linked with each other. Your Mom makes me feel secure and cared for and we belong together. When she is in pain, I can feel that pain, too, because we are linked and love each other so much. Do you understand that?”

“But- am I your soulmate? Because I love you so much?”

Her Dad smiles at the question and her Mom squeezes her shoulder a little “No, Lindsey, you love us very much and we love you very much but you have your own soulmate. If they get hurt you will feel that and if you get hurt they will fell that as well. That’s why Mike’s leg hurt even though he didn’t fall on it, his soulmate hurt their leg and Mike felt some pain but didn’t have a bruise because it wasn’t his own injury.”

Lindsey finds it really hard to understand. Isn’t it stupid to feel another person’s pain? What if she didn’t want that? Could she stop this soulmate-thing? Her parents tell her that she can’t do anything to stop it, this is just how it is. Her Mom says it’s a really nice feeling when you find your soulmate because you are so connected to them right away. Lindsey guesses she can live with it for now. She thinks about having a soulmate and decides that it doesn’t change too much for her, she does have some more questions, though.

“Is my soulmate why my shins sometimes hurt before we even start soccer practice?”

“They do?” her Mom looks at her questioningly.

“Yes, sometimes they hurt for a little bit at school. But nobody kicks me in the shins at school! They just hurt for a moment during class.”

-

Lindsey gets used to pain all over her body that she didn’t cause. She knows she often hurts herself during practice or at games and she feels bad for her soulmate who has to deal with the pain as well. But her soulmate must be either very clumsy or very careless because soon she can’t remember a day her body didn’t hurt somewhere for a couple of minutes. It’s usually only smaller things, one time her wrist hurts for a couple of days, but other than that they never seem to have major injuries. She has more major injuries than her soulmate, but she thinks that’s expected with playing soccer. She just doesn’t hurt herself all the time like the other person. Mike guesses that her soulmate plays football or is in a gang. He is very adamant that it’s one of the two options. She doesn’t argue with him, he is older and knows more about soulmates after all.

-

When her friends start to date, she gets a boyfriend, too. His name is Cody and he is in her English and Math class. They both know that they are not soulmates because nobody around them hurts themselves as much as Lindsey’s soulmate apparently. They don’t care about it either way because the time they spend together is fun and they genuinely like each other. They are 15 and don’t think they need to worry about finding their soulmates yet. Most of Lindsey’s friends handle the situation similarly. There is a couple the grade above them that claims to be soulmates but they are the only people her age who found each other Lindsey knows about.

Cody is understanding about how much time she spends at practice or games. He even comes to some of her games to cheer for her. Her parents like him and even Mike warms up to him after a couple of weeks. Lindsey thinks she could live like that and be happy. Maybe she doesn’t need her clumsy soulmate after all.

-

She breaks up with Cody anyways when she decides to go to France instead of college. It wasn’t an easy decision or conversation.

“I think we need to break up.” She springs that thought on him out of nowhere one afternoon during their senior year. He is laying on her bed, playing on his phone and she was doing her homework until the thoughts about her future disrupted her from doing anything productive like they have so many times during the last few days.

“What? Why? Did you meet your soulmate?” he tenses and sits up to properly look at her.

“No, I-“

“Well, then we don’t need to. We still have time. What we have is good, isn’t it? Why break up, we don’t even know if we’ll ever meet our supposed soulmates!”

“No, Cody. You don’t understand. I’m moving. To France. I’m not going to college, I’m going straight pro. I’m sorry, I didn’t talk to you sooner, I had to make that decision by myself.” Lindsey feels selfish. She truly likes Cody, she might even say she loves him. But if she wants to be a professional soccer player, she needs to be selfish to get there. He knows that, too. They had talked about the possibility to skip college when Lyon had wanted her the year before.

Lindsey knows it’s better for both of them and their soulmates to not drag their relationship out. They’ve been together for three years now and she doesn’t want to drag him along, make him wait for her only to then get into a situation where she or Cody meet their soulmate and are still in a relationship with each other. She can’t be in such a messy situation if she wants to concentrate on soccer.

And her relationship with Cody isn’t the only sacrifice she has to make for her career. The PSG coaches want her to have surgery on her knee before she starts with them. She misses the U-20 World Cup and becoming a champion with her friends. She knows it’s the right decision for the long run but she can’t help but question her choice of going to France when she lays on the couch with her healing knee, alone.

-

“I think my soulmate changed. Either occupation or behavior.” She tells Tobin one evening while they’re watching Vampire Diaries in her apartment.

“How do you figure that?” Tobin cocks an eyebrow. Lindsey usually doesn’t talk about her soulmate or soulmates in general so it’s odd for her to just say something like that.

“Well, they used to have all these smaller injuries. Something was always hurting, I guess they’d always run into something or someone. I got used to a certain ache that was always with me that wasn’t the same as my own muscles being sore after practice. The shins and ankles were especially bad. And now the general ache all over their and my body is still there, but my shins and ankles don’t hurt as bad? It shifted to the thighs and knees more I guess. Like the outsides of my thighs sometimes hurt in the middle of the night.” Tobin only looks at her with raised eyebrows.

“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know, alright? It’s weird and I don’t even know when it started to change. It’s been a while I guess, I was just too far in my own head to notice probably.”

“Well, maybe your soulmate is an athlete as well and changed their routine or something like that.” Tobin suggests. She shrugs “My brother thinks they are a football player.”

“Mhm, could be. Or soccer. Dude, that would be awesome, you’d be the soccer-power-couple!” Lindsey laughs at that suggestion and only shakes her head. She doesn’t know who or what they are and she doesn’t want to start with theories. Her friends had done that in high-school. Overanalyzing the body parts that would hurt, coming up with the injuries that could be caused by and then trying to figure out what their soulmate was doing. It had been fun for a while but it soon got boring, they never came up with something other than sports as an explanation, that wasn’t dark and involved fighting or harassment, for all of her pain.

“But you are only 18, you don’t have to worry about that right now anyways. Enjoy Paris!” Tobin interrupts her thought process. “I’m 24 and don’t know who my soulmate is yet, you’re in no rush.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonnett and Lindsey finally meet.

Emily feels right at home in Portland. Practice is harder than she’s ever experienced before but she’s in great shape. Neither she nor her soulmate had any bigger injuries for a couple of years now which she takes as a good sign for them both. She’s happy that she rid her soulmate of the hurting shins when she was moved from forward to defender in college, because her shins have been significantly less bruised since then. She’s also thankful that they don’t hurt themselves in major ways anymore like they sometimes did before. It’s not only better for them but she also selfishly admits it’s better for her own career, that hurting knee before her sophomore year of college really threw her off her training schedule for the summer. And to know that they are still there, she gets hurting shins more from them than from herself now.

Their first game of the season – and her first game as a player for the Thorns – is also the home-opener against Orlando. It’s not her best game, Orlando scores a goal after only 12 minutes, but they win in the end and for now that’s all that matters.

“Lindsey, what a great goal!” she tells one of her new friends on their way to the parking lot. They are both new to the team, so they naturally get put together all the time. They had already met at camp for the national team back in October and even though they get along great she thinks it’ll take some time for the other girl to warm up to her. Lindsey also already knows Tobin from playing together in France, so she isn’t in desperate need for a good friend like she is.

-

Tobin, Lindsey and Emily all go to the Olympics in Rio that summer but they try to block _that_ game out of their memories as soon as possible. The newer kids on the team spend a lot of time together. She instantly loved Sam when they met and little Mal fits in with them and Lindsey perfectly.

The season progressed without them but she is happy to get back to playing regularly when they arrive home in Portland.

-

Emily scores her first goal for the Thorns during the semifinal against Western New York Flash. It’s the equalizer in the 77th minute and she feels on top of the world. She was so used to cheering about scoring a goal in high-school and even in college she scored quite often for a defender. This is different though. Her first goal as a professional soccer player. In a semifinal, no less. She doesn’t know what to do with herself.

They make it into overtime because of her goal only for her to get nutmegged by Lynn Williams 20 minutes later. Williams scores a second goal shortly after that and even though Lindsey scores as well their first NWSL season is over.

Thankfully they played at Providence Park so they don’t have a long way back ahead of them. Emily just wants to go home, take a shower, and forget the game as soon as possible. She’s almost out of the door, when Lindsey catches her arm. “Are you going home?”

“Yes. Don’t want to stay here any longer.” She is unusually quiet after a game like this one.

“You want to come over? We don’t have to talk or anything but I don’t want to be alone.” Lindsey rushes out. “And I think I still have one of your sweaters at my place anyways and you can have some shorts of mine to be comfortable.”

She contemplates Lindsey’s request. She doesn’t really want company but Lindsey’s eyes are pleading with her to come along. She can’t say no to Lindsey. Of course, she gives in.

“Okay. But we need to get food and then watch that bad movie I told you about last week and not talk about this game. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Both of their parents had come to the game and were calling them to have dinner with them respectively. They both decline and make plans with them for the next day, not feeling like they could face their families right now.

They sit in Lindsey’s living room, eating pizza and silently watching TV when Emma calls her as well. She thinks about letting it go to voicemail for a second. But she doesn’t because it’s Emma. She knows not to talk to Emily about the game right now but to take her mind off soccer by telling her about a concert she went to and how her week has been. Emily feels there is something else on her sister’s mind but she doesn’t press her for it, instead letting her get to it in her own time.

“Em, there’s something.” Emma finally gets out.

“Yeah, I thought so. If you’re not ready, you don’t need to tell me right now.”

“No, I want to tell you. I’m just not sure how.”

“Maybe with your words?” Emily tries to relieve the tension. She can practically hear Emma roll her eyes while she sees Lindsey doing exactly that.

“Very funny. At work a couple of weeks ago a guy at the table next to mine- well, he cut himself. I saw it happening. And while the others tried to help him, my own hand started to hurt as well.”

“Oh. _Ooooooh_.”

“My thoughts exactly. And I wanted to tell you earlier, but I didn’t want to take the focus away from tonight so I kept it to myself until now. But we tested it and everything, I found my soulmate.”

Emily is happy for her twin. Of course she is. It stings only a little that Emma has already found her soulmate at the age of 22.

Others wait till 40.

Or forever.

She certainly doesn’t feel closer to finding her own soulmate than she felt at 12.

“What did Emma want?” Lindsey interrupts her thoughts.

“Apparently, she found her soulmate. A guy at her work cut himself and her hand hurt and then they tested it.” Emily is still trying to wrap her head around it while Lindsey seems grateful for the distraction.

“Oh, wow! That’s exciting, isn’t it? Is she happy?”

“I guess. She hasn’t told me much about him yet. He’s three years older than we are, from Georgia which is a huge plus, and likes a lot of the same stuff as her. That’s about it. And their story is pretty much your typical ‘one had an accident and the other saw and felt it’-soulmate-meeting, I swear our parents had almost the exact same thing happen to them. Do you know many people our age with soulmates? Besides Sam?”

“We had a couple who found each other at like 15 or 16. Crazy early. None of my close friends from home have found their soulmates yet but we are 22 so we’ve got time. Mike has been getting a bit anxious about it I think, the closer he gets to his mid-twenties.” Lindsey shrugs her shoulders and seems entirely unfazed about the topic.

“So, you’re not worried? Emma always told me that putting soccer first would hinder my ability to find my soulmate because I’m ‘distracted’. Which is stupid, it’s the exact opposite. I’m focused. Just on soccer, not on the soulmate-thing. But I do think about what she said when we were younger, I don’t want to be the reason we never find each other.” Lindsey looks at her curiously as she tries to explain herself.

“I always pushed the thoughts about soulmates away. Or tried to at least, it’s hard with a twin sister. And then I thought I might’ve found them when I was in college but it wasn’t them. And I guess it’s hard? Because my body aches all over all the time, we are professional athletes, for fuck’s sake! Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish what pain is my own pain and what is theirs, you know what I mean?”

She second guesses herself now. Maybe she said too much. Sure, she and Lindsey had gotten closer throughout the season and going to Brazil together but she had never voiced her worries about the soulmate-thing to anyone besides Emma. She doesn’t really know what prompted her to open up like this. Emily feels herself relax a little when Lindsey nods and grins.

“I totally get what you mean with the constant ache! It’s stupid, how am I supposed to know what’s mine and what isn’t? Often the aches are too similar and their pains get masked by my own and vice-versa.” She sees something shift in Lindsey’s face.

“I think, I never paid my soulmate much thought? I had a boyfriend in high-school and we knew that we weren’t soulmates but we figured we could be together anyways. Before I got together with him, I thought about my soulmate more but since then, I’m not worried about finding them. It’ll probably happen someday.” She shrugs “But in the last couple of years no major injuries happened that could lead me to them. So, I really have nothing to go from and that’s fine with me. Works out with soccer right now.”

She wishes she could be as indifferent about it as Lindsey seems. She knows she put a wall around the part of her brain that worries about her soulmate after the dilemma with Becca. She didn’t want to get in too deep again only to get heartbroken. So, Emily had some flings in college with girls she knew weren’t her soulmates and she wouldn’t get attached to them. Never an actual relationship though. She wonders how Lindsey dealt with a relationship she knew wouldn’t last.

She truly is happy that Emma had already found her soulmate. But while she tries to act indifferent about the topic in front of her family and friends, she also worries that she’ll never find her soulmate.

-

When Lindsey strains her hip-flexor in March the next year she wonders for a second if the ache in her own hip-flexor has something to do with it. As soon as she has that thought she pushes it as far in the back of her mind as possible, it surely is the soreness of her own body. She doesn’t want to repeat the experience she made with Becca a couple of years ago and build something in her head that isn’t there. Lindsey is her friend, she doesn’t want to develop some kind of stupid crush on her. To ensure that those thoughts don’t multiply she doesn’t even tell Emma about it. Because Emma, always the hopeless romantic, would see a great love story about best friends who didn’t know they were soulmates and would make a big deal out of it. And she knows if she even thought about the possibility of _anything_ with Lindsey, her heart would betray her mind and would start to _feel_. And she’s not up to feeling anything for Lindsey, she doesn’t want to have a crush on her straight best friend.

She pushes the thought away and concentrates on the pre-season.

-

They make it to the playoffs again. That’s two-for-two during her career now. Emily also scores again during the semifinal. And this time they win and make it to the final. She and Lindsey both catch some bug before the game but they won’t let that stop them. They want and need to redeem themselves after last year. The lone goal of the game comes from Lindsey after a set piece from herself.

Emily lets herself enjoy the moment after the game. She celebrates with her friends, with idols that turned to friends, and with her best friend. She hadn’t been this happy all season, being left off the National team for the better part of the year had been hard and a big hit to her confidence. But she had stayed on top of her game, always trying to become more consistent, and they did get the Championship in the end. She is set to go to Australia in a couple of days. The W-League-season starts in two weeks and she promised herself to make the most of it.

-

She had just started to settle in when it is time for her to go back to America for the National Team, she finally had gotten a call-up again. It is also right in time for Morgan’s wedding, thanksgiving, and her birthday which she is very grateful for.

Emma and Emily spend their birthday together. They go out and have breakfast at Waffle House just the two of them because they don’t get to talk to each other enough anymore. Especially with her now living at the other end of the world. Emma talks about her boyfriend a lot but that is to be expected and also welcomed. Emily can see how happy her sister is, how at home she feels with him, and that they belong together. It doesn’t sting at all anymore, she’s just happy her sister is smiling so much.

The day is great, until her grandma ruins it at dinner.

“Emily, dear, what about you?” she asks her after they finished eating. Some of her other relatives turn to them, her grandma knows exactly how to ask questions about the things others don’t want to talk about. Everyone is interested to see how the conversation turns out. She slowly sets her glass down and looks up.

“What about me, grandma?” she almost doesn’t want to ask. She’s sure nothing good will come out of a question asked this expectantly. She feels Emma next to her tensing, they both remember questions asked like this from their childhood.

“Well, you know, Emma met Brooks more than a year ago. I was wondering when you’ll introduce us to your soulmate. I’m sure a pretty girl like yourself won’t have problems finding a nice young man.” It almost feels as if her grandma is challenging her. Emma squeezes her thigh in comfort.

“Well, Grandma. You know how it is with soulmates, they don’t grow on trees. We’ll just have to wait and see, don’t we?” she knows the answer isn’t enough but it’s the best she can do right now. Emma tries to help.

“We just turned 24 Grandma, Em’s got some time. She should concentrate on her career right now anyways. I’m sure she’ll find her soulmate soon enough.”

Emily turns to her sister and mouths a silent “Thanks” before her Mom cuts in and thankfully stirs the conversation in another direction.

-

Lindsey calls her later that night to wish her a happy birthday. They also take advantage of the fact that they are only two hours apart right now and thus are actually able to talk for more than ten minutes. Being in Australia has made their constant conversation, even through text, quite hard. Emily tells her about the exchange with her grandmother.

“Oh, Em,” she knows Lindsey understood her trouble with the question and isn’t treating it lightly when she uses her first name “I’m sorry she said that stuff. Don’t let it get to you. She probably means well and is concerned. Not that there is anything to be concerned about of course! I just meant-“

“Don’t worry Linds, I know what you meant.” She takes a couple of seconds to gather her thoughts “It’s just frustrating. You know how I get about the soulmate-stuff.”

“You know, you’ll find them, right?” Lindsey gets quiet “You’ll find your soulmate, it won’t be like it was in college and they’ll be the right person for you.”

Emily takes a deep breath “She.”

Lindsey doesn’t say anything, and then “Hmm?”

“She. She’ll be the right person for me. I know my soulmate is definitely a woman.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sonnett's an idiot.  
The reason why I thought of this soulmate thing with the pain was because I wanted a soulmate AU where they don't instantly know when they meet with tattoos or colours or whatever. But Sonnett's still an idiot.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lindsey worries.

Lindsey follows Emily’s season in Australia religiously. Luckily the time zones work out in a way that the games are on around 10 or 11 pm in Denver which is not too bad. She is happy to finally see Emily in person again at January camp though. She knows even with a regular off-season and Emily staying in the USA they wouldn’t have been in the same state but they could’ve visited or at least talked more regularly. She realizes that she has become very used to having her best friend around her all the time and misses her a lot.

“Sonny!” she waited for Emily’s flight at the airport which meant that Mal, who was on her flight from Denver as well, had to wait with her. “Son, thank god you’re here! Lindsey was getting insufferable. I need you here so she can make fun of you again, I hate being her target.”

Emily only grins at her friends and hugs them “Right at your service!” she does a little salute for good measure. “You could’ve said you missed me, Linds. I know I’m great!”

Lindsey shoves Emily and laughs at her friend’s antics.

-

It’s around the end of May when things start to change for Lindsey. So far, the season has been going great for her individually but not really for the team. It wasn’t bad either just not up to their standards. To make things worse Emily then hurts her lower back. She strains it somehow while lifting at practice. Lindsey was already finished with her own lifting and had moved on to massages and the ice-bath. But Emily tells her all about it later when she takes her home in her car. Emily is pretty high on painkillers and talks non-stop, she hears a story about Tobin’s goal at practice at least three times.

“I know, Sonny, I was there. Remember?”

Since Emily is still very out of it, she gets her a hot-water-bottle and puts her straight to bed when they get to her apartment. Lindsey makes sure that Emily is asleep and then leaves to go grocery-shopping for her friend. The doctor told her that Emily will be on bed-rest for at least a week so she wants to make sure that she’d have the essentials.

When she gets back to the apartment, Emily is just waking up from her nap.

“Lindsey, is that you?” she calls sleepily from her room.

“You know, it’s not so smart to call out like that,” she tells her when she walks into the bedroom “what if I was a burglar?” Lindsey sits down on the edge of Emily’s bed, facing her.

“Very funny. You’re the only other person who has a key to this apartment and the building is safe. Can you please tell me what’s going on? I hurt my back at practice, didn’t I? I don’t remember a lot afterwards.” She tries to sit up but gives up after a few moments.

“I don’t know exactly happened. Yes, you hurt your back, then they gave you a lot of painkillers so that’s why you don’t remember anything – you were very out of it. You are on bed-rest for at least a week and out of practice for two weeks probably more-“

“TWO weeks? Hold up! That’s too long, I feel fine, I can’t miss that much.”

“You don’t really have a choice. You can’t do a lot with your back. And they gave you so many painkillers, of course you feel fine, you aren’t though.” Emily looks absolutely miserable now.

“I got you some groceries so you won’t starve to death. You should be able to walk around the apartment a bit so you can cook a little, but I could also just order you a lot right now and stack your fridge? Your painkillers are in the kitchen, they wrote down when you have to take them, it’s before every meal or something like that.”

“Oh. Thanks, Linds.” Emily smiles softly at her.

“Yeah, yeah. We need our center-back, don’t we?”

She contemplates for a second to offer to sleep over and look after Emily. But she figures if Emily wanted that, she would just ask.

-

She checks on Emily every day before and after practice.

On her birthday, they have an evening game. Emily had asked her to come over at noon because she wanted to see her since she still can’t leave her apartment. But she is encouraged to move around a bit. Listening to her doctors, she can’t watch the game at the stadium or go out with the team afterwards but she can cook lunch for Lindsey to have a little ‘pre-celebration for her best friend’, as she calls it.

The next week, Emily notes that it’s completely out of her way to come over twice a day – she lives only two minutes from the stadium after all – she only shrugs and continues to eat the take out she had gotten for them.

“Ugh, your couch is not good, even for me, I can’t imagine what it’s doing to you with those back problems. You should seriously think about getting a new one when you can move more than three feet again.” Lindsey complains. Her back started to hurt during dinner and now she shifts uncomfortably in her seat to find a seating position that won’t hurt her.

“Sure, no big deal, I’ll just get a new couch with all the money US soccer is throwing our way.” Emily rolls her eyes. “But could you get me my painkillers from the counter, I think I forgot to take them before we started eating.”

“You’ll never get better if you don’t take them, dumbass.”

-

Lindsey sits in her car on her way back to her own apartment when it hits her. She pulls over to gather her thoughts.

Emily had forgotten her painkillers before dinner.

Emily who had back pain.

Her own back had started to hurt during dinner.

It wasn’t hurting anymore now though.

She couldn’t put her finger on the moment it stopped hurting. She thought it was because she got up and walked around a bit, maybe she also changed her position on the couch. But maybe, _maybe_, there was an entirely different reason. Why didn’t it hurt her when Emily initially hurt it? Where had she been when it happened? She must’ve been at training too?

She always assumed that people meet their soulmates and know within the first couple of days or at least weeks that they are soulmates. She’s known Emily for more than two and a half years now, that surely would’ve come up?

Then again, Emily never has major injuries, she never tears anything, she never even gets a strain. And the one time she does, Lindsey is at the massages and the ice-bath when it happens. She herself has been very lucky as well since joining the Thorns. There only had been that hip-flexor-strain last year- the hip-flexor-strain! If Emily would be her soulmate she would’ve felt that, wouldn’t she? And then she would’ve said something. What if Emily knew they were soulmates and didn’t say anything because she didn’t want Lindsey as her soulmate? What if she purposely kept that from her? Or what if Emily really didn’t feel any pain back then and she just had issues with her back because Emily’s couch was so awful?

It’s too much. Lindsey can’t breathe. Her head is swimming with questions. With all the different possibilities.

She feels like she’s suffocating, her thoughts are suffocating her. She gets out of her car and inhales deeply, trying to calm herself down. She’s in the middle of the city, almost home actually. The mild evening air feels good on her face and in her lungs. She decides to just park her car there for the night and walk home, it’s only one more mile.

She needs the walk to clear her head. She can’t deal with the discovery and what it might mean, the consequences, right now.

-

She can’t stop thinking about anything else for weeks.

Lindsey continues to care for Emily because she’s still out with her back and tries to push the thoughts about any possibility of them together far away when she’s with her. It’s getting pretty hard after a couple of days and she’s thankful that Emily’s back is getting better and she is able to do most stuff on her own again. She also leaves for camp with the National Team without Emily as she’s still injured. She figures it’s good for her to leave her usual environment for a while, maybe it will clear her head a bit.

She throws herself into camp and practice. It helps her to block out even thinking about soulmates. Obviously, she still texts Emily regularly but not seeing her in person makes it easier to stop thinking about it. Maybe she’s also getting over it.

-

She isn’t over it.

She knows that as soon as she gets back to Portland. Instead of letting them take an Uber to their apartments, Emily picks her and Tobin up at the airport.

“It’s the least I can do Linds. My back is better, I want to hear all about camp and you picked up groceries for me for way too long.” Emily tells her when they get into her car. Lindsey really can’t disagree.

They drop Tobin off first and then make their way to Lindsey’s apartment.

Emily gets out of her car when they get there and follows her inside before she can stop her.

“I already ordered dinner for us,” Emily tells her from the couch while she is putting away some of her stuff “I figured, Thai would be good?”

“Ah, you’re staying?”

“I did say, I wanted to hear all about camp, didn’t I?”

When they’re sitting on her couch together, eating dinner, talking about soccer, and aimlessly watching TV, it is like it always is when they are together. It feels normal. She’s used to doing these things with Emily. She tells herself that nothing has changed. And if you looked at it, nothing _had_ changed. Everything is totally normal.

Everything is still normal when Emily cuddles up to her when they finished eating like she sometimes does. Lindsey is on her phone and Emily lays her head down on her lap, facing the TV. Totally normal.

Then why does her heart start racing? And did Emily’s head always feel this heavy in her lap? What should she do with her hands? What does she usually do with her hands? What-

“You’re really tense, everything alright?” Emily looks up to her.

“Huh? What- yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine.” She squeaks out and flushes, totally normal.

Emily lets out an amused smile “You sure about that?”

“The week’s been just really long, I guess.”

Totally normal.

-

The thing is, Lindsey can’t pretend that she hadn’t already thought about them together. Before she noticed any parallels with their pain, it was just a random thought without any possibility of being true. Back then, she thought about how easy it would be if Emily was her soulmate. How perfect it would be to have her best friend as her soulmate. It was just a daydream back then because she couldn’t help herself when Emily told her that she was gay. And Emily seemed so sure about it. Lindsey caught herself not being sure about anything regarding her soulmate. She had never paid the soulmate-thing too many thoughts so hearing Emily being so sure about the gender of her soulmate had thrown her off. She didn’t know anything about her own. Unlike her friends, she didn’t come up with imaginary scenarios in middle-school because she didn’t really care all that much. And then the thought of Emily had entered her mind. But back then she had been so sure that it wasn’t a possibility that she actually welcomed the thought. It seemed just so comfortable and _easy_. She had found herself wishing to meet someone she could be just as close with and them being her soulmate.

So, the thoughts she is now having about Emily aren’t entirely new. They are just so different. It’s not an innocent daydream anymore.

-

Lindsey catches herself staring too much. She starts to notice things about Emily that she hasn’t noticed before. Or maybe she had but didn’t care, she doesn’t know.

Now she notices all of it though. The crinkles around Emily’s eyes when she smiles big or laughs at her own jokes. Or how she scrunches up her nose from time to time. Sometimes when she’s cooking a stray strand of hair falls from her bun and she blows it out of her face which is somehow really- cute? And those little dimples.

Lindsey realizes she’s in way too deep when they are out for coffee one day before practice. Emily is at the counter, ordering for them when a fan, a girl around 12 or so, comes up to her and asks for a picture. Emily still seems always so baffled when she gets recognized and just smiles bashfully at the compliments she gets. Emily comes to their table with the drinks, still smiling about the interaction and gushes about that little girl. And Lindsey knows then that she wants this all the time. These little coffee-dates, Emily telling her all about the small things that happened in her day, Emily’s smiles and dances, and Emily.

-

People always warned Lindsey about having a crush on a friend because then the friend would meet their soulmate and you would be crushed. Or worse you would meet your soulmate and weren’t emotionally available which would set up both of you for heartbreak and confusion.

Lindsey now knows that you can’t really help it. She doesn’t want to have a crush on Emily but she has. She also knows that she probably is far beyond a crush.

She learns how to deal with it. She contemplates putting a distance between them to get over it but she knows that she can’t do that. First of all, Emily would notice and question her about it. Second, they are on two different teams together so it’s practically impossible, they are too ingrained in each other’s life. Third, they have so many of the same friends that they would notice and be nosy about it and that’s even worse than just Emily asking her.

So, she deals with her feelings by not really dealing with them. She still gets a little tense when Emily initiates body contact but she doesn’t initiate it anymore. She tries to sit a little further away from Emily on the couch so that they are at least not touching until Emily of course cuddles into her side. And she absolutely throws herself into soccer. She’s on top of her game right now, scoring, assisting, having the best season of her life so far. If Emily notices the small changes, she doesn’t say anything.

Lindsey goes on like this for weeks. Another National Team camp comes and goes. This time Emily is with them again. But they never get roomed together at camp which is very helpful to her situation. Before she knows it August and thus the final third of the season are upon them and the team is more concentrated than ever. North Carolina Courage isn’t stoppable from getting the shield but they want that second place at least.

-

Then the game against Sky Blue happens.

Everything seems normal, things are going great, they are up by one goal. After a free kick that Tobin takes, the ball gets brought back in to the box and Emily is still up there because she always comes up for set pieces. She breaks free from the line and it looks like it’s only her and the goalkeeper battling for the ball. She goes in for a header and then the goalkeeper’s fists collide with her face.

Before Lindsey can even think to react, she feels immense pain in her nose and the surrounding area. She hisses and can’t help but cup her own nose with her hands. “Fuck!”

Unfortunately, Tobin is right next to her.

She looks at her, then at Sonnett, and then back at her. Lindsey thinks it looks like Tobin is watching a Tennis match. It would be funny really, if it wasn’t for the pain that she is trying to hide.

“DUDE!”

“Tobin, shut up! I can’t deal with this and you right now.” She calls over her shoulder as she leaves Tobin standing on top of the box and rushes over to where Emily is now rolling on her back to let Bailey look at her. 

She stands next to Emily while she is getting medical attention to provide as much comfort as needed.

During the rest of the game she can feel Tobin’s eyes on her. She doesn’t even need to look to know that her friend is looking at her. She doesn’t know how to explain anything to her later, she is still in the process of wrapping her head around the new discovery. Her dreams seem to be coming true right now and she should be telling everyone who wants to know – or doesn’t – about her happiness. Except there is the nagging voice in her head again that tells her to be cautious because Emily had probably known about this for more than a year without telling her.

-

“I’m coming over.” Tobin tells her after the game.

“I figured,” she sighs “just let me get Sonny to the doctor and to her apartment first, okay? I’ll text you when I get home.” Tobin raises her eyebrows at her.

“What? She needs a more thorough check. That quick concussion test wasn’t enough. Seriously, I’ll text you.”

-

She nervously waits for Tobin. She doesn’t even really know why she’s so nervous, she didn’t do anything wrong, she just made the same discovery as Tobin had. But she’s incredibly nervous about the discovery that Emily, her best friend, the woman she already has feelings for, her _teammate_ Emily, is her soulmate.

She knew this was a big possibility but it all comes crashing down at her again. Like it did all those nights ago in her car. She doesn’t know what to do until Tobin arrives, she can’t sit still but she can’t concentrate on doing something productive around her apartment. She tries folding laundry. Then she tries to do the dishes. Then she sits down on her couch again, thoughts racing a mile a minute.

Finally, Tobin arrives. When they sit down in the living room, Tobin looks at her expectantly as if she asked something. Lindsey can’t do anything but stare at her and gasp for air, her thoughts suffocating her again. Tobin takes her hands in her own and tells her to mimic her own breathing. It calms her down after a while.

“I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I’m freaking out so much.” She apologizes embarrassed.

“Don’t be. But I take it from your reaction to my question that Son doesn’t know? And it’s new for you, too?”

“I’m not sure if she knows. I’m so confused, I don’t know what to think.” She starts to tell Tobin everything she knows from the night on Emily’s couch and her discovery back then to her hip-flexor-strain, her growing feelings, and her doubts.

“Well, that’s certainly something.” Tobin’s not really helpful after she finishes her story.

“Lindsey, I think you need to stop worrying so much-“ “How can I not worry?? Toby, this is about my soulmate! My soulmate I’m spending the rest of my life with. Or not probably because she doesn’t want to.” She’s on the verge of tears now, fully grasping what it means if Emily doesn’t want her. She doesn’t only lose her best friend, she loses her soulmate as well. The one person who’s supposed to make her feel safe and protected. Who should love her no matter what. Emily usually makes her feel all those things. Had made her feel all those things before she even started to think about the prospect of them being soulmates. All their late phone conversations during the off-season, the long evenings on one of their couches, staying over because it was too late to go back home, going out for coffee or on bike rides. She always felt the most comfortable around Emily and she didn’t realize it. And now that she knows, she feels like it’s too late. She missed her chance. Emily doesn’t want her.

She is fully crying now, Tobin rocking her in her arms.

“Lindsey, please stop crying. I don’t think Sonny knows and is hiding it from you.”

She sits up abruptly and stares at her friend, “You don’t?”

“No. I think Sonnett is in love with you and doesn’t know it. She probably doesn’t want to be because you’re her best friend. So, she pushed her feelings away, subconsciously. Even if she did notice any pain when you had that flexor strain she would’ve never made that connection because her brain would’ve blocked that out.”

“You think she’s in love with me, too?” Lindsey whispers.

-

They decide, Lindsey needs to be brave. Or Tobin decides for her. She needs to go over to Emily’s and talk to her. It sounded easy when Tobin said it and then when she repeated it in her head but when she sits in her car outside of Emily’s apartment she can’t bring herself to exit it. She tells herself that she has nothing to be afraid of. That she’s just going to talk to Emily. But she’s going to talk to _Emily_. Her soulmate Emily. The most important person. She wonders if it was this stressful for her parents when they found out they were soulmates. Probably not. They didn’t know each other all that much. They didn’t know how amazing the other person was. How much they would gain with their presence in their lives. How much they could lose.

Her phone buzzes. Tobin. “Get OUT of your car!”

She chuckles, of course Tobin would know that she’s still sitting in her car, 15 minutes after arriving,

-

“Hey, what’s up- Linds? What are you doing here? My face is fine seriously, you don’t need to worry.”

“We need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go! 
> 
> It'll probably take a bit longer because I have problems with my back right now (how ironic, didn't find a soulmate though) so writing is out of the picture, I can't sit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last bit, they finally talk about everything.

Emily is thankful that Lindsey goes to the doctor with her after the game. She wouldn’t have thought to ask half of the questions Lindsey asks so it is good to have another person there. She half expects, half wants Lindsey to come into the apartment with her, have dinner and get comfortable on the couch together but apparently, Lindsey already has plans with Tobin.

Now Emily’s sitting alone on said couch, icing her face. She seems to get off lightly with the nose, it’s not really swollen, just a bit of bruising and a slight pain. She definitely had worse injuries before and will also probably have worse in the future.

She’s surprised when someone’s at her door and even more surprised when it’s Lindsey who had just been there a couple of hours ago and was supposedly busy right now.

When they sit down on her couch and she turns to Lindsey, she finds her already turned and looking at her. Albeit very apprehensively.

“Linds, is everything alright?”

Lindsey runs a hand through her hair and rubs her nose a bit. Emily knows those habits to be clear indicators for Lindsey being nervous.

“Hey,” she nudges Lindsey’s knee with her hand, “what’s up? Why are you nervous?”

Lindsey looks up, flushing, knowing she got caught. Emily is really concerned by now. It’s not like her best friend to be this nervous around her. Something must have happened to trigger this behavior. She racks her brain about any possibilities. After the game, she had been too self-involved with her nose to notice if something had been up. She knows that everything had been just fine before the game when she had picked Lindsey up like she always does. And did she cry? Her eyes look a little red.

Lindsey still hasn’t said anything. The silence increases Emily’s nerves and worries by the minute.

“Lindsey. You’re making me nervous. Do I need to hide a body for you?” she tries and fails to make a joke “Cause I would, you know?”

Finally, Lindsey looks up, looks at her. Her eyes definitely are a bit red, she cried sometimes between dropping her off at her apartment and coming over. Emily doesn’t really know what to do with that information. When she tries to pat Lindsey’s knee, Lindsey flinches. She meant the gesture to be comforting but apparently, it had the opposite effect.

“Linds,” she almost whispers now “talk to me?”

“I don’t know how to say this.” Lindsey finally decides to answer her.

“I’m- I don’t know how you’ll react. Or what you’ll do with this information.”

Emily only cocks her head and motions for Lindsey to go on.

“How- maybe, I’ll-” Emily hears Lindsey mutter under her breath. She still doesn’t know what to make out of this conversation. If you could even call it a conversation.

Lindsey gets up and stands next to the couch for a moment, uncommitted. She then proceeds to go over to the dining table that Emily never uses, it’s just for show because she’s an adult and adults need a dining table. Emily’s eyes widen as she watches her best friend bang her pinky-toe on the table-leg. She’s so stunned by the action that she can’t do anything to stop her.

She looks bewildered at Lindsey.

Lindsey looks at her… challenging?

“Why would you- are you out of your mind?”

Lindsey raises an eyebrow. She seems to be waiting for something.

While Emily is slowly getting over the little shock that Lindsey caused, her brain can focus on other things. Like the pain in her own pinky-toe. Her head whips up in realization and she stares at Lindsey, mouth hanging open.

Her next instinct is to laugh incredulously. Lindsey’s face falls from challenging to disappointed. The look on Lindsey’s face tells her that laughing clearly isn’t the reaction she was expecting or hoping for. Before she can do even more damage, she hurries to say something.

“Oh. My nose today?” Lindsey only nods in confirmation, now sitting down next to her on the couch again. She shifts so that she’s facing Lindsey.

“It hurt so much and so sudden today. Tobin saw, too. And I’ve had my suspicions before-“

“What? When? You didn’t tell me?”

“Let me get this out, please? I had some back-pain in June. But it was there and then gone and I didn’t want to make too much out of it. Plus, I figured if it was true, you would’ve known when I hurt my hip-flexor last year. So, it probably wasn’t true. Or-“ Now she interrupts herself, shaking her head.

“Or what, Lindsey?” Emily needs Lindsey to tell her everything, while she still tries to fully grasp what all of this means.

“Or I thought maybe you didn’t want me to be your soulmate.” Lindsey mumbles and looks away, almost ashamed. Emily carefully lays her hand on Lindsey’s knee again. This time she doesn’t flinch at the contact.

“Hey, no. I really didn’t know, okay?” she tries to think back to that time the year before. She can’t come up with anything. She probably hadn’t felt anything out of the ordinary back then.

“What do we do now? Like is this weird for you? It probably is, right? I’ve had a little more time to get used to the thought and-“

“Linds, your rambling is cute, but I need you to stop that for a second, okay?” She doesn’t know how to deal with this situation. She’s never heard of anyone in a similar position. Some soulmates have known each other for a couple of weeks or months even before discovering the truth but not this long.

Lindsey then looks at her expectantly.

“Well. I’m not really sure? I mean, I trust you with everything which is a good start I think? But… I need time. I can’t flip a switch and go into this. That’s not fair to either of us. I guess- maybe we need to change in some way…”

“Get to know each other on a different level, you mean? See this in a different light.” Lindsey gestures between them.

“Yeah, like give ourselves some time, or maybe me mostly. I’m sorry.” She blushes. She wants to be ready but it’s too much to process right now. She feels like this blindsided her. It’s probably like this for most people. And she’s happy that Lindsey is her soulmate. She really is. She just can’t wrap her head around it right now. She doesn’t want to rush anything. This is so important for the both of them. Lindsey’s so important to her, she doesn’t want to half-ass their relationship.

“No, Sonny, don’t feel pressured or anything! This is about both of us. I had more time to think about it. And I know how I feel about this, _us_. I’m ready. But it took me some time. And I know you’re not there yet. I don’t want you to feel pushed. You can take all the time you need, just don’t disappear on me or something stupid like that? Please.” Lindsey softly requests.

“I won’t.” she murmurs and cuddles into Lindsey’s side as she turns on the TV. For the first time in weeks, Lindsey doesn’t tense up.

-

They go on like this first evening for quite some time. They deliberately spend all their free time together. Tobin, Ellie and Caitlin all ask them about it but they just keep to themselves for the time being. On a usual evening after practice they order food, occasionally Emily cooks something for them, then they settle on the couch and eventually Emily cuddles into Lindsey or Lindsey throws her arm around Emily’s shoulders.

When they go out for coffee now, Lindsey pays more often for both of their drinks than not. Whenever Emily is the one to order and pay for them, she always brings a cookie back for Lindsey because she knows how much she likes them. These changes in their relationship are subtle but so important to Emily. She can feel something shifting inside herself, feels something shifting between them. She starts to think – allows herself to think – about Lindsey more when they’re not together. In the past, they had talked multiple times about how they both wanted a dog at some point. Now she starts to imagine what kind of dog they would get _together_. She knows, she always felt drawn to Lindsey and very comfortable and at ease around her. She learns that she also feels secure and most like herself in Lindsey’s presence. She’s still not sure if she’s ready. Ready for the next step. Ready to change their relationship from friends to girlfriends.

Emily doesn’t really know what is holding her back. It might be just the general fear of going from friends to more. It might be the very distinct fear of losing her best friend Lindsey. Or the fear of uncertainty.

-

“We’re a package deal.”

Lindsey’s words still ring in her ears after they finish the q&a livestream they did for the Thorns on Facebook. They really are a package deal. No one knows to what extent though. The tip of her ears warm up and her heart flutters a little at that thought. She’s glad that she’s at home now so nobody can see her getting all flustered about Lindsey and those words.

Somehow Rose knows more than what’s good for her – as usual. She gets a text from her friend.

**Rose**: What’s up with the heart-eyes? You and Lindsey looked very cozy during that stream.

**Sonnett**: We did??

**Sonnett**: Was it obvious?

**Sonnett**: I mean, do you think everyone caught that?

**Rose**: You’re fine, I guess. I just know you both too well.

**Rose**: Wait

**Rose**: Why are you not denying anything?

Rose calls her instead of letting her reply.

“So, what is up with the heart-eyes? Anything I should know?” Rose teases her.

“Don’t you have your own life? Do we need to talk about mine?” she tries to deflect but knows it won’t help her case. She doesn’t really want to talk about it yet. It feels too soon. And she should talk to Lindsey instead of Rose.

“Shouldn’t have picked up then.”

“Shut up!”

“Well, are you ever going to answer? Should I maybe call Kelley, she’ll get you to talk!”

“NO! No, we don’t need to drag more people into this.” Rose legitimately cackles at that, knowing the bait had worked.

“I guess- well, I haven’t really talked about it. But yeah, I guess there is something. Um, we’re soulmates? We discovered that like two weeks ago or so.”

“You’re WHAT now?” Rose’s screaming is so loud that she needs to hold the phone away from her ear. “And you’ve discovered that after almost THREE years of knowing each other? I mean it makes sense and thank god you are, because that would’ve been awkward as hell. But still.”

“What do you mean ‘thank god’?” she questions her friend.

“Sonnett. You’ve been in love with her for years. Don’t tell me otherwise, it’s obvious.”

“I have? What?” she asks in disbelieve “I’ve only just started to see her as possibly more than a friend! And you’re telling me I’ve been in love with her for years, very funny, Rose!”

“Well, you have been. I see you didn’t know. I guess, you didn’t want to know? You probably blocked it from your mind. It was still very apparent for us as your friends. I’ve talked about it with Sammy and Mal. The way you look at her, the things you would do for her sometimes, oh, and my favorite: how she can do basically anything and you won’t be mad, ever. Should I go on?” Rose laughs at her now. “Don’t feel bad though, she isn’t much better. Lindsey’s gotten especially bad these last couple of months.”

-

Emily finds herself in front of Lindsey’s door not much later. After the conversation with Rose she made the rash decision to drive over to the other girl’s apartment. She didn’t come up with a plan beforehand which she now realizes and regrets.

“Em, hi. Did I forget that you were coming over?” Lindsey sheepishly grins at her, thinking she made the mistake.

“No, I decided to come over just half an hour ago.” Emily pushes past her and inside the apartment. She’s still not sure what she’s doing there. Why she came. What to say.

Lindsey seems to sense her confusion. She guides Emily into the living room, a hand on the small of Emily’s back to calm her down. Lindsey looks at her, worried.

“Is everything alright with you? Did something happen?”

Emily instantly calms down. Of course, Lindsey says exactly the right thing without even intending to. Lindsey’s questions let her know that she is on her side, worrying about her if something was up. The situation just shows her once more what Lindsey always was for her: a constant, the steady person she needs.

She takes a deep breath and cups Lindsey’s face, stepping into her personal space. Emily kisses Lindsey softly, a little uncertain and tentative at first. She pulls back and looks into Lindsey’s now barely open eyes. She finds nothing but reassurance and affection in them. She thought that she needed time, that she needed to get used to the thought of Lindsey being her soulmate but she realizes now that she probably always knew to some extent.

“I’m ready” she mumbles against Lindsey’s lips and leans in again. The kiss starts gentle but Emily deepens it quickly, pulling Lindsey in, her hands locking behind her neck. Lindsey takes the invitation and allows herself to be more confident as well, slipping one hand in Emily’s hair while the other rests on her hip. They kiss like that for a while, not rushing into anything, slowly, unhurriedly.

When they pull back, Emily leans her forehead against Lindsey’s. She realizes how much she really wanted to try this for the first time. She feels content, everything feels easy with Lindsey, everything feels right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it!


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